This invention pertains to telephone message waiting lamps, and more particularly, is concerned with systems and apparatus for indicating a message is waiting.
A number of systems have been proposed for indicating that a message is waiting at a remote location. For example, Schmidt et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 4,506,115, Call Message Alert System, describes a message waiting lamp which flashes in response to a modulated out of band signal sent on ring and tip wires to a telephone handset.
Magnusson in the aforecited pending patent application describes a circuit which latches a lamp on once an ordinary ring signal has been detected.
These arrangements serve their purpose of indicating that a message is waiting or that a call was attempted, but do not have the capacity to provide additional features such as call forward.
It is desirable to provide a system and apparatus which, in adjunct with existing equipment and lines, provides information which may be pertinent to a stored message.